On 29th August on the Open-Air Theatre of Városmajor, in the Competition Programme of Szemle Plus, the co-performance of METTRIN and Maladype, The Suit closed us out of the reality of everyday life for sixty-five minutes.

The basic situation of Can Themba’s story, which takes place in Sophiatown, during the time of apartheid, is simple: Philemon catches Matilda with her lover, the man escapes, and the husband makes his wife that his suit, which he has left behind, treat as a vivid guest – this situation takes away intellectual freedom and human dignity as well from everybody. They cannot adapt to it, just break, get silent and get lost.

It was a good decision, that before the performance there was a warming conversation by Zoltán Balázs, together with Ganga Tsengiwe, the ambassador of South Africa and Adrián Kovács, composer. They talked about the historical-political background, Sophiatown, the apartheid, the South-African cultural place of the play, and even about the formal and musical language of jazz-opera. It is important, as Balázs’ staging very fast separates the story from the pure telling of the happenings, and he abstracts it into a closed, visionary, ideal area, where social violence, the power inside a marriage, the jealousy, possession and humiliation are presented at the same time on different level of stress.

Aesthetically the performance is extraordinary unified: Zoltán Balázs as a director, librettist, set designer and the former of the movements, together with Adrián Kovács composer, Zsolt Lukács dramaturg and Daniella Sovány costume designer, have built such a structure, in which the word, music, body, light and the object can continuously redefine each other.

Zoltán Balázs can surf between styles, authors, eras and topics, his staging characteristic is recognisable immediately: he is of global theatrical proportions but his theatre is stubbornly individual creative one, which does not reproduce the form language of any school, but creates its own rules, then consistently applies them. It is good to be his viewer, as we can never know, whet we should expect, he always surprises us, makes us think it over, he always creates a new aesthetic-emotional area. Besides all: the open-air stage many times “breaks” the performances of permanent theatres, they lose their power, their interpreting moments get lost because of the circumstances, now and here it has not happened: the performance had its undamaged intensity.

The set makes us see an electric circuit and ribbing, cable track and basket of ribs at the same time. Philemon and Matilda seem to get stuck inside of a huge system, where tension is going around without any cuts, the structure keeps them alive and at the same time it keeps them captive, that way the objective world becomes the machine of confinement and captivity.

Adrián Kovács’ jazz-opera is the nervous system of the performance and the live orchestra – András Szép, Benedek Kárpáti, Szabolcs Dörnyei/Balázs Rodek, Balázs Rabóczki/Zsolt Magda and Tamás Gyányi – can move tension around that way between the scenes, as the electricity goes around in a closed circuit.

Csilla Radnay’s Matilda has an excellent singer and artistic presence: her voice is technically extraordinary and she show the whole emotional and physical story of the role. When she sings, we cannot decide even for a moment, where the musicality finishes and where the artistic work begins.

Barna Kelemen Bányai’s Philemon is an emotional monolith, and it makes him frightening: seemingly, without any properties, without any spectacular artistic demonstration he can show a man’s suffering, then the transformation, where the hurt man himself, has become the torturer of the other one – his virtuosity is that he shows almost nothing from his virtuosity.

Ferenc Fehér’s K.K. is the lover and the Suit at the same time, he elevates the metaphor into an individual artistic presence; his physical presence is disturbing, his dancer quality is premium, his body is sometime human-like then an object, sometimes it is a memory, then a frightening one, by it, the suit is not a property any more, but the torturing conscience that has become free from behind the forth wall of the stage.

The Suit is excellent, because all of its meanings are going around in the same perfectly closed aesthetic circuit: it is beautiful and cruel, abstract, intellectual and elementary – it is another meisterstück by Zoltán Balázs.

Éva Farkas, Iza színházban járt, 2026

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)